Stockspot becomes first Australian robo-advisor to integrate AI and machine learning into financial advice

Sydney fintech startup Stockspot has become the first robo-advice platform in Australia to integrate AI and machine learning functions into financial advice. The company has today announced the launch of its new digital financial assistant to help clients optimise their investment behaviour.

The digital financial assistant works by analysing thousands of clients and making targeted recommendations. As it learns, the technology will provide consumers with intuitive assistance to help investors optimise their profile and coach them to make better investment decisions.

Instead of being a financial advisor that makes recommendations through listening to clients, Stockspot will now give advice based on consumer behaviour and actions. Machine learning and AI allows fintech services to take a more data driven approach to find the best possible solution to customers financial needs.

“We think it’s a pretty exciting way to move forward into financial services because it really removes the chance of any sort of bias,” said founder of Stockspot Chris Brycki.

“We’re only looking at what people are doing opposed to our interpretation or things that might not be worth paying attention to. It allows you to give very data based recommendations to people.”

Along with the digital assistant, Stockspot will also be launching a new investment dashboard that will give clients more control over their investment experience as well as make tax reporting easier.

Key features of the dashboard include personalised notifications, which use AI and machine learning to guide clients towards their goals, prompts from the assistant on the best time to re-invest, the ability for clients to select a strategy that suits them, advance warning on when distributions are due, individualised tax reporting, and ability for larger clients to personalise their portfolio with themes.

Brycki explained that AI and machine learning is the future of digital advice. “Machine learning is in its infancy but it will change the investment and financial advice landscape. It will be like having a financial expert on call 24/7 that clients can access on their own terms. This level of personal advice has only been available in the past to the privileged few.”

Through the integration of AI technology, Stockspot can analyse the investment behaviours of thousands of its clients to drive improved investment decisions.

“When investing, your biggest enemy is often yourself, having digital financial assistant there to guide you will stop clients from making common investment mistakes,” Brycki said.

“The dashboard is an evolution of the personal advice experience we give investors. It allows flexibility and more control over their investments, it also gives clients a better chance of reaching their goals. Many of our older clients rely on franking credits and dividends for income. Stockspot’s new dashboard provides the exact date when upcoming dividends are due which will help make budgeting easier for retirees.”

The new features will be made available across Stockspot’s mobile responsive website over the next two months and will be included in the platform’s current cost which ranges from 0.53 percent to 0.79 percent per annum.

Brycki said, “We think in the future that a lot of digital advice provided by financial services will be personal advice. It won’t be generic information, it will actually be important and tailored to the client. Instead of giving generic ideas to people the future of financial advice will be services like ours that give personal recommendations based on personal information and personal behaviours.”

Image: Chris Brycki. Source: Supplied.